Rate my finances and let me know where I should improve

[Cherriesandapples1]

I've posted about my finances before, had debt from various unavoidable costs rather than buying too many nice things unfortunately. I've spent the last couple of years trying to change my financial situation and had quite a big change around in my finances the last 12 months or so.
I'm interested to see how people would rate my financial situation on average for my age and so I can compare it to what people were saying previously. Also if there's anything you would do to improve
I'm 34, live alone
I own a house worth roughly £220k with around £60k mortgage and 12 years left to pay
No other debt anymore thank god
Income around £44k a year gross
About £8.5k in savings
Around £1k in a&s ISA.
Just joined pension fund recently, luckily decent Defined Benefit pension so should be able to catch up a little on retirement fairly quickly hopefully

Score me 0-10 on how you think my financial situation is for my age and what would you do to improve further. I've spent the last few years with debt and now I've got some savings behind me I'm trying to work out how I'm doing now and what I should be looking to improve

Flexible cash ISA so you can take money out and put it back in (in the same financial year).

I decided not to pile money into a pension and piled it into savings instead, I wanted to be able to maximise interest payments by being able to move it around as I chose and have access to the capital if I needed, worked out well for me, but not a recommendation.

Yes that's where my emergency fund and short term savings are at the moment. Also oddly better interest than normal savings accounts at the moment

The thing tempting me with putting maybe some of my money in a sipp is the added tax on top of what I'm putting in, I know it's taxable on the way out and age restricted though so I don't know whether to bother splitting payments between a sipp and s&s Isa or ignore the sipp for now and chuck it into the Isa like you
Feel like debt repayment was a more obvious path than where to put money you're saving

What's the accrual rate on your pension?

I would probably top up the savings a bit- maybe to £10k. Are they in an ISA?

Then I'd set up regular payments into both a S&S ISA and a Sipp. DB pensions are great but they are not flexible and you often take a big hit if you want to access them early, so it's a good idea to have additional investments. As you are a basic rate taxpayer the Sipp provider can reclaim the tax for you. Shop around for a provider who can do both with the lowest fees- that way you won't pay more in fees by having both the ISA and Sipp. There are loads of articles online about which to prioritise between ISA and Sipp so have a read, but in short they each have their own virtues and there's something to be said for both (the balance might switch if you move up to being a higher rate taxpayer).

Accrual rate is 1/49 per year on the pension career average rather than final salary
£8.5k in high interest flexible cash ISA
Just over £1k in s&s ISA.
Would you put the next 3 months of £500 a month into the cash ISA and then split the following months into equal £250 to s&s ISA and £250 to the sipp. I've found trading 212 do no fee sipp, so could invest in global etf in the sipp pretty cheaply

Yes that sounds sensible.

Realise I didn't rate you before 😂I'm going to give you 8.5. Yes you could have started your pension earlier but the DB pension is a game changer.

I am a finance professional and I think you’re doing pretty well. Put as much as you can in a pension and consider a stocks and shares isa for the long term. A defined benefit pension is gold so don’t change to a job without one!

You're doing extremely well and should be proud. If you end up with a partner on par with you then that should be a very comfortable life ahead. On the flip side, if you find that you're with someone with a lot less behind them (or even debts) please do ensure you take steps to protect what is yours. Old person lecture over!!

I do have a partner just live separately. He's doing better on the pension side, less equity and about similar on the savings front really, no plans to marry , so think if we ever bought a house together it'd just be a case of making sure the property equity was split accordingly and ring fenced, so would be fairly simple

your doing really well to be honest only things I would point out - the savings - should be 2 - 3 mths living expenses and as in a very good position with mortgage i would say £8.5K is more than this so I would move the remainder into a Trading 212 account or your S&S ISA. put the highest % you can in to your pension DB in this day and age is amazing, I froze mine when I changed company in 2018 the growth alone is great, because I changed career and took a wage drop i only put 4% currently and my company matches but ideally I would go to the max that they match as I want a comfortable retirement life and lets face it as I have earnt and paid in I probably wont get a state pension if i do happy days but not counting on it so I do without and save for my future to be penalised for being sensible - but thats another argument.

if you can pay extra off your mortgage to clear down sooner than 12 years I would but thats only because it makes me feel better as it is a debt. to have no debt and be affording your mortgage on your own, and have decent savings your only lacking in your pension 100% be proud of that you are financially savvy which is what i am trying to teach my DD 16 and DS 15 - already have them looking at a junior pension to pay in even a small amount of their earnings from their little jobs

All sounds pretty good - but for heavens sake get into that pension scheme quick. Can you pay additional contributions? A defined benefits pension is honestly the jackpot, way better than anything else.

The earlier the better for financial literacy with teenagers I think. Even if they do ignore your advice sometimes at least if they have the knowledge it gives them a head start

I think you have done a great job, would say 8/10. I would keep £5k emergency and put more into your S &S ISA, could you do a monthly saving into this to build a habit? A monthly amount means you are buying regularly and helps ride the market volatility (pound cost averaging). Do you have any old pensions (even small ones) from previous jobs that you could consolidate into an overall, low cost SIPP? You could then make single payments into the SIPP when you have some spare cash.

I am in the work pension now. I literally had nothing to cut back on while I had the debt, so I've joined it now. That's why I was wondering if it was work adding into a sipp as well as a s&s ISA to help catch up on the pension side a little quicker. In regards to additional payments into the work pension, I can't add anymore in the defined benefit side and they wouldn't contribute to anything if I opened an additional voluntary contribution pension with them which is defined contribution. So I may as well open a lower fee sipp as they confirmed I wouldn't get reduced NI either with joining their DC scheme

It's very difficult to know what to do. I don't even know what to do myself as state pension will be unsupportable with the triple lock continuing.

Government may well begin means testing state pension in the future if they deem people will be getting enough through employee pension/SIPP.

Losing state pension is the equivalent to losing a £260,000 pension pot and paying extra into a pension would not be worthwhile under these circumstances.

They may also change access rules. At the moment you can access 10 years below state pension age.

A lot of people suggest pension is better if 40% taxpayer but I do a mix (ISA/LISA and SIPP) just to safeguard against future government rule changes on pensions /ISAs.

Be aware of estate planning as well and what can be taken into account when bringing your assets down to (from memory) around £23000 to pay for care costs.

Honestly can’t see any govt means testing the state pension. The state has introduced auto enrolment because they really really want people to make other provision alongside the state pension. If people know that paying into an occupational or private pension will work against them as they’ll lose state pension, they simply won’t pay into it. Why would they? They’re already paying NI, people aren’t stupid, they’ll just spend more money during their working life to avoid accumulating pensions and savings. It would work against the whole auto enrolment and everything the govt wants us to do.